“In a way, establishing this non-profit organization is coming full circle for me,” says Lan Vu. Lan was born in Saigon, Vietnam. She fled the country in 1975 as a refugee of the Vietnam War. Her family lost everything overnight. They left the country with a small suitcase hastily filled with old family photographs, which her father considered their most precious belongings. They spent months in a refugee camp and were sponsored out by US Air Force Colonel Gerald Clayton and his wife Anne, an Eastern Airlines stewardess. The kindly couple sponsored not only Lan’s immediate family, but also the extended family with aunts and uncles -16 people in total were living with the couple! Lan’s family had to start from zero in the United States. In fact, it was actually the second time her family lost everything and had to start over. Her once-wealthy parents had left Hanoi in 1954 empty-handed, and managed to re-build their livelihood in Saigon. The example of her family losing and rebuilding their lives made Lan realize that when all is lost, education is the best lifeline to reconstruct your life. 

Instead of an anniversary celebration, Lan wanted to contribute to the beauty community by launching a non-profit organization, the OpenstreamsFoundation. Through it, she and the BEAUTYSTREAMS team – a passionate, multicultural group of people – hope to spread the borderless spirit.